Saddled with Murder

by Eileen Brady

  He glanced out the window into the parking lot before answering. “No, Julie moved to New Jersey a few years ago to be closer to her grandkids.” Once again his eyes drifted toward the window. “Well, got to go. Nice meeting you all.” Joe offered us a quick nod of the head and started to leave; however, he stopped when another man came in.

  “Don’t forget, she has an enlarged liver,” I added. “Tell Julie to schedule a recheck with her vet.”

  “Will do.” His head swiveled toward the man walking toward the reception desk. “Hey, Tank. I thought that was you that pulled up. How are you doing?” Joe’s voice suddenly became animated. He smiled and fist-bumped the older man.

  “Great. Doing a little ice fishing this weekend up north. You should come with us.”

  “Maybe. Thanks for the invite.”

  I noticed that Tank also wore a fishing-themed baseball hat.

  “Well,” Joe told him, “got to run, but I’ll call you later.” With another fist bump he left, holding the door open for the bulldog. Through the window I saw him lift Queenie into the back of a Jeep in the parking lot.

  “Great guy,” the man called Tank said. “Watching him drop a line in a river is a beautiful sight. Too bad about his mom.”

  “Yes,” Cindy agreed, “but she lived a good life.”

  My receptionist always knew the right thing to say.

  “You fellows must be fly fishermen. My Gramps always envied you guys.” I moved behind the desk next to Cindy and picked up some papers as an excuse to hang around. “Isn’t there a television show about fly fishing now?”

  He warmed to the subject after telling Cindy that his wife had sent him to pick up their dog’s medicine. “Doc, it’s amazing how many contests and styles of fishing they show you on cable now. When I was a kid it was a line, a float, and a worm if you were lucky. Now some guys earn a living doing the contest circuit and endorsing products. Wouldn’t that be the life?”

  Tank conveniently forgot about the wife and dog.

  “My hubby treats himself once a year to some kind of fishing outing. Last year it was a catch-and-release giant carp trip,” Cindy said, handing him the medicine in a paper dispensing bag.

  Tank made some kind of whooping sound. “I did one of those three years ago. Never had so much fun in my life. Joe was supposed to go, but he had to cancel. Couldn’t get the time off from work. Darn shame. Guess how big my best catch was.”

  “Thirty pounds?” I’d seen some of these contests with my Gramps, and the sizes of the carp were unbelievable.

  “Fifty-one pounds. There’s some places overseas where they grow to over one hundred pounds, even bigger.”

  His face turned red and flushed. I thought he was going to have a heart attack over his fish story.

  Cindy intervened. “Now, Tank, if your wife has any questions, tell her to call me so you don’t get into trouble.”

  The two of them shared a chuckle.

  “Will do. Thanks, Cindy. See you, Doc.” He shoved the small package into the pocket of his coat and left.

  “So, did you learn anything?” Cindy asked as soon as we were alone.

  “Not really,” I answered, my voice echoing in the empty room. “Joe is pretty quiet, although he did get worked up when he talked about fishing.”

  My receptionist agreed. “Did you know you can spend thousands of dollars on equipment? The hubby and I had to have a little talk about that.”

  “I’m always amazed at how you can spend your money,” I said.

  A triumphant grin spread across my receptionist’s face. “Well, all this fishing talk reminds me of something odd I heard from one of the bridge ladies.”

  “Give.”

  “This is really strange. Did you know we now have a local chapter of a group called LARN, Legalize Animal Rights Now? One of the women, who is a retired lawyer, says they’re searching for test cases to present to the courts. One of the test cases has to do with salmon fishing.”

  “I’m not following you,” I said.

  “They want to stop wild salmon run fishing. The contention is that legally, all fish have a right to reproduce. Fly fishermen are taking away that right.”

  “Even catch and release?”

  “Even catch and release. If it ever passed, it would put a multimillion-dollar industry out of business.”

  * * *

  Meeting Joe Rieven sparked my curiosity about Eloise, so I decided to bribe Mari with one of her favorite things. I’d purchased a bag of bite-sized brownies from one of the specialty stores in town. Baked by our local Biker Baker, they were so addictive she limited herself to one bag every month. This holiday bag with little Santa hats had December all over it.

  Mari was friends with many of the doggie set in the area, having shown her Rottweillers in both traditional dog shows and agility trials, as well as doing Schutzhund training when she was younger. Because she was a lifetime resident of Oak Falls with a wide range of relatives scattered throughout the Hudson Valley, I was counting on her to help uncover details of Eloise’s life.

  After three or four of the rich chocolate tidbits, my assistant was more than happy to oblige.

  “My mom always said that Eloise was a beautiful woman when she was younger. She came from money, brought up in Rhinebeck. Went to some kind of fancy boarding school, if I remember right.”

  After a quick chocolate break, she continued. “Eloise had her pick of guys but chose Andy Rieven, the youngest son of a bank president. Very handsome, but not particularly ambitious. The two honeymooned in Europe, and when they got back, he went to work in his dad’s bank. She started raising and showing dogs. They had two kids, but one died in her teens. The daughter’s death affected Eloise terribly,” Mari said. “After that, things became worse.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked her.

  “Well, they had, I guess, some financial ups and downs in one of the stock market crashes. The bank went under and Andy lost his job. They sold their big house in Rhinebeck and moved into her family’s farmhouse in Oak Falls. Joe went to school here, but just as things started looking up, his father, Andy, committed suicide. Seems he owed money everywhere. Eloise didn’t know that he was a secret gambler. Luckily, he couldn’t gamble away the house here in the village because her family trust put it in her name. Life’s been hard for her ever since then.”

  Everyone has a story, my Gramps always reminded me. I’d been quick to be annoyed at Eloise, but her bulldog puppies probably represented extra income.

  “That’s why she was so adamant about the artificial insemination.”

  “Do you remember any of her puppy sales going bad?” I asked. “Maybe someone who held a grudge against her?”

  “I didn’t, but my mom did. She sold some newlyweds a puppy with a heart problem.”

  That confounded me. “If there was a heart murmur or arrhythmia, that’s usually picked up during the puppy exam.” Most puppies and kittens had their first veterinary exams around six to eight weeks old.

  After a quick sip of water, Mari continued. “Eloise didn’t take them to a vet. She decided to save money and do everything herself.”

  That, unfortunately, is an all-too-common problem.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “The couple buy the puppy, take it to their vet for shots, and their vet has to give them the bad news. When they confront the breeder, Eloise tells them no refund unless they give her back the puppy.”

  “Sounds like you’ve heard this before.”

  Sadly, I had. Now the new owners are in a terrible position, of giving their baby puppy that they love back to the breeder, who may or may not get it proper medical care. Or worse yet, sell the puppy again and let another couple deal with the problem. I’d heard about every version of this basic story you could think of.

  “Did they resolve it?” I asked.

  Mari sh
ook her head. “They were weekenders, and I think they brought the puppy for heart surgery in New York City. Doc Anderson was pretty annoyed about the whole thing, though. He and Eloise had been friends.”

  One more reason the owner of Oak Falls Animal Hospital was on a round-the-world cruise and I was filling in for him.

  A last question remained. “Why did she decide not to have puppy exams?” It might have cost her fifty-five or sixty dollars a puppy, and she sold them for one thousand dollars each. Of all the dogs to take a risk on, bulldogs were right up at the top of the most medical problems list.

  Mari threw up her hands. “Money. Isn’t it always about money?”

  After a few phone calls, I had a basic understanding, thanks to Mari and her mother, of Eloise’s life before she died. Living on Social Security, she owned her house outright and lived frugally. A proud woman, she wouldn’t ask her own family for help. Little by little she’d sold off land when her children were young, keeping about fifty acres. All that was left on the acreage was the farmhouse—not a beautiful historic building full of antiques, just a worn old house in need of repair—and a broken-down garage.

  Her will gave her entire estate to her only living child, Joe Rieven. The evidence was mounting up that this was simply a tragic accident.

  So why did some people blame me?

  I decided not to check how many more people logged on to YouTube to see the wish.

  Chapter Ten

  Winter days now fell into a pattern, usually predicated by the weather. On bad days my only trips outside were to walk the dog. Frank’s and Eloise’s deaths dampened my desire to socialize. I started skipping social media entirely. The amount of interest in my Christmas magic “death” wish, as people referred to it, escalated, I was told. Almost every other client we saw chided Mari and me about the video. Cindy reported receiving more crank phone calls, probably from teenagers, asking if they could add a few more people to our list.

  Since there was no such thing as a secret in Oak Falls, the Christmas card we received from a dead guy bumped up the gossip.

  It was less of a surprise when the second card arrived signed by Eloise, also deceased.

  No one envied our office manager/receptionist Cindy having to slog through the mail each day with vendor bills, endless solicitations from brokers, and training seminars promising to whip your staff into shape over a weekend. That’s why the square Christmas card envelopes stuck out from the rest. With a certain resignation on her face, she stopped me in the pharmacy. “These two are for you.”

  A glance at the first envelope set off no bells. It contained a return address. I opened it up to find a rambling note imploring me to use my “special” powers to get rid of someone. At first I thought it was another prank, someone pulling an elaborate joke on me…but the more I read the tangled and twisted pleas of the writer—who sincerely believed I might wish someone dead on his behalf—the more disturbing it became.

  The second card presented a whole different problem.

  This familiar ivory envelope, of very good quality with a hallmark on the lip, looked identical to the previous card from Frank. Dreading, but needing to confirm who sent it, I slipped on a pair of exam gloves and very carefully opened the flap.

  Cindy stood next to me, watching.

  Inside rested a card with the same gilded edging, the same dog and cat in golden collars looking out the window at Santa Claus. It was signed Eloise and congratulated me on having my second wish come true.

  “Things are getting out of hand,” I told Cindy. We preserved both pieces of correspondence in separate bags and added them to Chief Garcia’s items for pickup.

  My receptionist locked the new evidence in her desk and said, “It always gets worse before it gets better.”

  “Should we tell the chief to put a bodyguard on that third person? The one Pinky added?”

  From Cindy’s expression I suspected she was tired of my worrying. “I’ll say it again, Kate. Frank and Eloise died from accidents. Accidents. I know the whole thing seems weird, but weird things happen all the time in this world. These cards are from someone with a sick sense of humor.”

  She could repeat it a million times, but that didn’t get rid of the feeling in my stomach that something was off.

  Weird things. We all read bizarre stories about something or other all the time. In line at the drug store I’d read about sisters separated at birth only to end up twenty years later living next door to each other. A woman finding her lost wedding ring inside a potato. There even was an entire tabloid dedicated to paranormal stories of ghosts and aliens. Strange stories fascinated people. My story would probably show up in the Christmas issue.

  * * *

  Resigned to my current fate I tried to make the best of it. As Gramps said when he’d called to check up on me, “Everybody messes up. It’s only a matter of time. Learn your lesson and forge ahead.”

  So forge ahead I did. Soon the jokes fell off, and some folks expressed concern that I was being harassed. Conversations in the hospital turned back to Christmas vacation and shopping and endless stuffing recipes. Talking about the weather rose to topic number one, with the YouTube video coming in a distant fourth.

  My tension headaches lingered, though, especially at night after a demanding shift. Tired after a long day, I’d finally gotten rid of a lingering low-level throbbing at the base of my neck. Snuggled up with my happy dog after a glass of wine and an entire pint of fudge ripple ice cream, I was sleepily watching HGTV when the cell phone rang.

  “Hey, Cindy. Anything wrong?” Caller ID had warned me my receptionist was calling. I just hoped she had no new disaster to report.

  She laughed. “We’re fine, but the night is young. I called to say don’t you dare drive anywhere tonight. The roads are a mess, and this storm is way worse than anyone thought it would be. The ice is bringing down power lines.”

  As if on cue I heard the wind howl around the corner of the building. A tree limb pounded on the kitchen window. “Don’t worry, I’m in for the night. The hospital is empty, and the emergency clinic has been on since we closed.”

  “Good. Let me know if Pinky comes by to plow.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Next to Pinky’s house stood a modern garage, where he seemed to spend most of his time and stored snow blowers, riding tractors, at least two huge trucks, and all kinds of equipment.

  “Don’t forget, if the electric goes off, the generator should automatically kick in.”

  “Fine.”

  Cindy was the mother hen to everyone at the animal hospital, whether they needed a mother hen or not.

  “Alright. If you want anything just call us. Stay warm.”

  “You too.”

  After another hour of mindless television, my eyes started to droop, but I needed to find out which home the couple from Phoenix chose, in a rerun of House Hunters.

  They chose house number three. A big mistake, in my opinion.

  * * *

  That night a pounding on the door accompanied by barking from Buddy woke me from a sound sleep. The backup alarm clock on the nightstand said 1:15 in the morning.

  “Dr. Kate, Dr. Kate!” The pounding continued. “Wake up. It’s an emergency.”

  As the sleepiness cleared, I realized I recognized that voice.

  “It’s Pinky, Dr. Kate. My dog, Princess…” Garbled sounds followed, lost in all the noise.

  I’d fallen asleep on the sofa. Despite being in wrinkled old sweats, I hushed Buddy and quickly opened the door.

  There he stood, a massive three hundred plus pounds, clutching his toy poodle, Princess, to his chest. Snowflakes covered his hat and shoulders.

  “Come with me,” I said and led him through my place and into the hospital treatment area. Gently, I took Princess from him and grabbed my stethoscope.

  “What’s happeni
ng?” Before he could answer, the tiny dog started hacking, the dry cough echoing in the empty treatment room. I’d seen her before, a beautifully groomed senior dog much beloved and in good health. Now she lay in front of me struggling for breath.

  Pinky stared at his pet, tears streaming down his face. “I took a break from plowing and found her on the floor, just like that.”

  While I listened to her heart and lungs and palpated her slightly swollen belly, my mind ran through a list of possible problems, from kennel cough to heart disease to cancer. First, we needed to help her breathe, so I placed her in an oxygen cage, inserted an IV, and pulled some bloods. That was enough stress until her breaths came easier.

  “How long has her belly been swollen?” I asked while preparing to take an X-ray.

  Pinky fixed me with a blank stare. “Swollen? I thought she was getting plump, like me. Princess eats what I eat. Always has, since she was a puppy.”

  Each time I heard that high voice coming out of Pinky, it caught me off guard. Physically imposing and completely bald, his round pink head looked welded to his body, with no neck to speak of. The odd high school nickname came from a propensity to flush dark pink when embarrassed or nervous.

  I checked my patient, relieved to see her gums had gone from a muddy bluish color to slightly red, a very good sign.

  “Why don’t you sit down?” I told him. His breathing sounded labored to me. I didn’t need to have him take a nosedive onto the floor.

  I’d never be able to get him up.

  * * *

  About twenty minutes later I had some preliminary results for him. Meanwhile, both Pinky and Princess looked much better.

  “Once she’s stabilized, I’d like to transfer her to the emergency clinic.”

  “No,” his voice thundered at me. “I want you to take care of her.” He was agitated now, and his round face deepened further into shades of dark rose.

  In this state it was useless to argue with him.

  “I don’t want to leave her.” Pinky stood up then, towering over me. Alone with him in the hospital, for a second I felt threatened, but with my insistence he quickly sat back down in one of the lab chairs. It creaked under his weight. When he looked back at me the tears started again.